Computational Complexity and other fun stuff in math and computer science from Lance Fortnow and Bill Gasarch

Thursday, February 26, 2004

Fermat's Last Tango

While visiting Bill Gasarch in Maryland, he chose to show a tape of
Fermat's Last Tango,
an off-Broadway musical based loosely on Wiles
and his experience with Fermat's last theorem. Instead of Wiles they
used the name Daniel Keane as the person who proved the theorem. Wiles
should be thankful for the name change. We stopped watching
after twenty minutes. It was full of monotonous music and clichéd stereotypes
of mathematicians. We turned it off after an egotistical song by the
Keane character about his "love" of numbers.
According to the video jacket, we missed the love triangle between
Keane, his wife and mathematics which he discusses with Fermat, Gauss,
Euclid and Newton who have visited from "aftermath." I have
learned a valuable lesson: Math and Science can make good drama (Breaking the
Code, Proof, Copenhagen and Arcadia as examples) but it doesn't make a good
musical.